From Soldier to Yogi: Eric Walrabenstein Reaches Out to Veterans

Opportunity: If you're in the Phoenix Area, former Army Infantry Officer Eric Walrabenstein would like you to participate in a pilot program being tested to help you with stress related issues. 5 weeks long,  2 meetings a week (Monday and Thursday). Participants are paid a stipend of $150. Swing by Yoga Pura for more details or watch this video.

"He must have discipline and high morale and understand the core values that make our Army great and the Infantry the "Queen of the Battle." He must have heart and he must not quit. He is not inherently superior, he is not born with these things, he must be taught. The education of a man is more than a piece of paper; we teach lessons in life as well as lessons in combat. We demand that Infantrymen be led to a higher standard." - US Army

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” - Rumi, 13th Century Sufi Poet and Mystic

My life has been greatly enhanced by a daily practice of yoga. And so, the recent addition of my life as a writer to that as an active duty military wife has been made a lot easier because of it.  An early-morning web search of others in the military with like minds led to Army veteran Eric Walrabenstein, who has developed a program that mixes yoga and psychology for veterans. After a few emails, I had the former Amy Infantry Officer on the phone.

When I asked Walrabenstein if he saw any disparity between his life in the military and that of a yogi, his answer was an emphatic no. "I loved the military because it was service to something bigger than myself. It was selfless. Service to humanity through yoga is the same," he says.

From 1985 to 1989, Eric Walrabenstein served as an Infantry Officer at Fort Lewis, and later in the 2nd Battalion Reserves as the Basic Training Commander at the Presidio in San Fransisco. It was during this time that he had a chance meeting with a woman who told him about zen. Ever curious, Walrabenstein followed the leads, which led him to several years of study at the San Fransisco Zen Center, which then led him on the Yogic path. It was as if his life's work had found him. "It was fate," he says.

Article Author: Kanani Fong

Kanani Fong's first loves are poetry and literature. But being a writer, she also writes about the military, fashion, culture and books. Her blogs are The Kitchen Dispatch a Literary Milspouse Blog, Easy-Writer on literature and writing, and The Literary …

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